


Pulses

by greglet



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 19:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6766612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greglet/pseuds/greglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim had woken up approximately three times before Spock came to visit after dealing with Khan, giving Jim and Bones some time to figure out what had happened to each of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulses

**Author's Note:**

> The hospital scene at the end of ST:ID never satisfied me so let me fix it a bit.

Leonard was conscious of Spock at his back, the loyal First Officer eagerly waiting to address his friend and Captain but, for Leonard, it was a bit of a nuisance. Jim had been so anxious to see another familiar face beside Leonard’s that his heart rate had been up beyond resting all morning and Jim had been an absolute child when Leonard tried to give him something to calm down. But, the kid knew fine well how to use those vibrant blues and Leonard was left to grump at the ward nurse instead while Jim got his way like the unruly toddler he was. 

“Jim, you’re awake.” Of course he was. Jim had been pining for attention after being locked up in medical for weeks and apparently Leonard wasn’t good enough to keep the social needs of a people-greedy bastard like Jim Kirk sated. Thoughtfully, Spock has waited on the good doctor’s estimation for visitation which, while Leonard appreciated it, Jim had not. However, after Leonard told him that Spock, and eventually the rest of the crew, could visit, he perked up. Jim had been steadily weaned off the drowsy painkillers for the better part of four days now and every time he woke he was less groggy and more ready for his visitors, not that he ever said no to Leonard - but after being dead and then in a medicated coma, he thirsted for fresh faces. 

The rest of crew had followed Spock into Medical but waited patiently in the room down the hall for Spock’s evaluation. Although Jim wasn’t completely verbal about wanting to get back in touch with his crew after the event, it was clear enough in the way he spent most of his time between looking out the window in vicious hope that someone would pop up, detaining nurses or maintenance workers, and worst of all, trying to fight sedation just to talk to Leonard a little bit longer during the nights, that he really was scratching at the walls for something new. He felt worst about plugging Jim with drugs on the nights where it reached one in the morning and they were still talking about Jim’s diagnoses, the Enterprise, the crew, his situation post-medical, and of course, themselves, but the kid needed his rest even if he didn’t want it. 

But now, with Spock stepping in behind him as he wandered around to check Jim’s machines and connections to them, he couldn’t help but chip his piece in as Jim thanked Spock for saving his life.

“Uhura and I had something to do with it too, y’know.” The sly smirk on Jim’s face as he turned to Spock said it all. Jim was well aware that that comment would’ve caught Leonard’s attention, but he didn’t miss it for what it was - Jim rocking the boat. Still, his honest comment must have been the right thing to say, otherwise Leonard doubted he wouldn’t have a few light fingers pressed to his leg as he fiddled with dosage and the results on his PADD.

#

Leonard had wheeled Jim’s biobed into the white room himself, his scrubs still on and his arms faintly yellow in iodine. He had flicked on all the machines, connected Jim’s vitals to his personal, work and communal PADD at the nurses station, all as his eyes gleamed over the steady vitals. It was then that the smallest gravelly murmur almost had him smashing his PADD into the floor.

“Jim-?” Throwing himself from the foot of Jim’s bed to his side, Leonard’s hand made a grab for Jim’s twitching right as his index and middle finger went to the inside of Jim’s wrist.

“B’n’s?” Jim’s voice was so faint, but even that breathy grumble had tears stinging in Leonard’s eyes, not realising just how much he missed hearing Jim’s voice. It had been a long week of Jim in and out of several surgeries and therapies, a long week of no sleep and his gaze full of PADD digits, and a long week of having a desperate fear of checking on Jim only to find him as icy as he had been when they brought him out the cryotube. But none of that had even come to mind before he grasped Jim’s hand in his and found that anchoring pulse he had been monitoring all week. 

“I’m here, Jim.” Not knowing what else to say, Leonard held back his tears in case Jim really woke up - he didn’t need to see the fight of grief and relief swimming on his weary face. Leonard’s dark gaze dropped to Jim’s hand in his and how Jim seemed to begin mirroring Leonard’s action to feel for Jim’s pulse - Jim’s index and middle finger slowly unfurled and pressed lightly against Leonard’s veins. It was a wash of relief, hearing his voice and hearing him whisper that damn nickname, but alarm came crashing back as a Jim’s brows knitted together. At first, Leonard thought it was the pain - Jim shouldn’t have been able to wake up anyway, so it would’ve been logical, until Jim explained the frown in three small words.

“Wh’t’d you do?” Leonard’s heart wrenched as memories of his oath guilting him further, but his ever-medical mind telling him that at least Jim’s cognitive functions were so far intact - he was remembering after all. Leonard wondered just exactly what was going through the head he wanted to reach out to caress back to sleep, but something in Jim’s tone had his left hand balling by his side. He hadn’t realised his tears had spilled over until one hit his wrist. Jim’s mind was clearly still turning as his brows lifted from their frown into something that looked like grief from a dream. The emotions might have been muted in Jim’s exhausted muscles, but it was there and for Leonard it couldn’t have any more blatant.

“Jim-”

“Bones- I died-” Jim’s eyes were fluttering and quick slivers of the violent blue storms Leonard had refused to lose were visible, even through his own blurred vision. But his comment wasn’t a statement and it might have been the recent surgeries, the trauma or the drugs, but Leonard couldn’t help but hear an accusation - one he couldn’t put up with, not after the hell he went through to get that, now racing, heart beating again. 

“Jim, don’t you dare be angry at me.” His accent thicker through the lump in his throat, he shook his head as his gaze lowered to their intertwined hands as the hectic beeping of the monitor attached to Jim’s beats-per-minute had suddenly cut off. “You’re right, you died, but you made me-” A jittering breath rocked through him and the light touch against Jim’s wrist fluttering in his stress. “You left me no choice, Jim” His words were full of hesitation as he remembered the day he found out, through an emergency notification to his PADD that Jim had placed himself under Leonard’s care - into his hands… “You left me no…” Shaking his head again, he couldn’t get out what he meant - that Jim had left him. Jim had left him here to struggle alone, to somehow carry on when the gaping hole in his chest had threatened to eat him up at any given moment. “I was either gonna follow you or bring you back and this time, I brought you back.” 

“Bones… I’m n’t…” Jim’s hand lightly squeezed Leonard’s in attempt to say what his words couldn’t and Leonard interpreted it that he wasn’t being accused of bringing Jim back, more just misunderstood methods for how he managed to bring Jim back. 

Jim’s head tilted from the surgical centre to lolling right, it was clear he had succumbed to the drugs in his system. The difference now was the ghost of a smirk sitting at his pink lips - not the dead emotionless rest at blue lips that would haunt Leonard on lonely nights. It was that ghost - that Jim Kirk Special - that had Leonard choking on the lump in his throat and giving up his dying resolve not to openly sob at Jim’s bedside. 

I must not play God. The words rang in his head as the tears made dull thuds on the cotton sheets. I must not play God. That was the oath he swore, the one all those years ago he promised to uphold but now as he sat here, Jim’s hand in his, their fingers against the others’ pulse, he knew his oath would be meaningless against his selfish drive to keep Jim beside him. 

#  
The next time Jim woke, it was still a surprise but less of a complete shock. Leonard had been adjusting his drip, chatting mindlessly to a nurse about the a disruptive occurrence in the emergency room the previous night when the nurse interrupted his complaints. 

“Doctor McCoy, your patient seems to be listening in.” The smug nurse quietly left as Leonard looked down to see a warm smirk on Jim’s face. 

“Ah mea’in, juhst who ra’eesed theeze damn keds?” Jim imitated his doctor’s last line, earning him an eye roll and a disapproving shake of Leonard’s head. Still, he couldn’t help but mirror the smirk sitting against Jim’s lips as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Well, I see your accent hasn’t improved.” Jim’s scoff got a small chuckle in response before Leonard got to his most common question. “How’re you feeling, Jim?” 

“Tired, even though I just woke up, I’m tired, Bones. And hungry - can I get real food yet?” It was like looking after a sick kid some days, but still, tucked up in medical under Leonard’s watchful eye was as safe as Jim Kirk would ever be. 

“You can get breakfast in the morning, I’ll fix it up-”

“You’re gonna make me breakfast? Like those waffles you made in the academy?” 

“Not I’m not gonna personally make it, Jim, you haven’t eaten real food in two weeks, you’re gonna have to go slow for a bit.” And unfortunately, going slow meant hospital certified bland, beige and goopy. The hope in Jim’s eyes did tempt Leonard to bend the rules and maybe give him something plain, like toast…but he couldn’t be tempted by every bat of Jim’s blues. 

Jim’s head turned to the window into the hallway, watching a nurse wander by as his mind clearly drifted. Leonard was about to make his excuses and leave as he unfurled his arms from his chest before Jim spoke up. 

“What happened, Bones?” Guilt wrapped around Leonard and squeezed, his jaw unconsciously locked for a second as he thought on what did happen. What happened wasn’t even simple in its plainest sense - Jim died and Leonard worked until he was almost in a grave himself to pull him back. “Bones?” 

Leonard nodded, assuring Jim that he did hear his question, he was just trying to figure out how to relay the story without launching himself into a battery of vicious flashbacks. 

“Sit with me, Bones.” While Jim patted the space beside him on the bed, Leonard took the single chair at the side. Pulling it closer to Jim he wanted to make sure he didn’t feel like Leonard was withdrawing after everything as he let his hands hang over the length of the arms. 

“Where do you want me to start, Jim?”

“What happened in the chamber?” 

#

The rest of that discussion was detail oriented. The story was linear from A to B. This happened then that happened. It was objective and emotionless. There was no sting of tears or lumps in throats, it was just plain and simple. It wasn’t until Jim was really fighting the sleep did he reach from his side to find Leonard’s hand and stretch his index and middle fingers over Leonard’s wrist, did his jaw and heart clench as the hovering feeling of how close he was to the biggest loss of his life buzzed at his back.

#

The next time Jim woke up it was with a shock to Leonard’s alarmed insistence. 

“Jim?! Jim! Jim, wake up-” Jim was drowsy, his eyes not pulling up like he wanted them to and instead, he creased his brow under the weight of his exhaustion. 

“Bones? S’goin’ on?” The more details he took in of his surroundings - the feeling of the sheets at his skin, Leonard’s hand on his cheek and his other on his shoulder, the surgical white light muted by Leonard’s head hanging over him before both hands vanished and the light came back.

Opening his eyes, the first sight he was greeted with was Leonard crumpled in the chair, his head over almost between his knees and his hands over his face. 

“Bones? Bones, what happened?” Starting to look about himself for clues, he noticed a tray of what was probably meant to be his dinner upturned and on the floor, a bowl smashed, a creamy liquid oozing along the floor and cutlery flung about. Looking back to Leonard who was heaving like he had ran a marathon, obviously something had happened to himself as he had lay there unaware. “Bones?” 

“You looked blue.” Muttered hesitantly from behind his hands, Leonard didn’t know what else to say. He could’ve swore Jim’s lips were blue, that his skin was deathly pale, that his heart rate on the screen had disappeared… but as Jim had moved under his insistence, the steady beep of the heart monitor pierced his cloud of fear, as did the pink of Jim’s lips and the small heat in his cheeks. He knew he hadn’t been dealing with the events as well as he should’ve been but he wasn’t expecting to start having delusions. “I thought… you looked- you looked like you did before, Jim.” Raising his head enough to get a look of a Jim who was alive and well and watching him with worry as a nurse came in to see the commotion before scuttling off for a mop. 

“Bones, I’m okay - you fixed me, remember?” 

“Fixed you?” Leonard didn’t mean to spit it back at jim, he was really more at war with himself than even remotely angry at Jim. “Refusing to let you go, even after your heart stopped beating isn’t fixin’ you, Jim, it’s just fucking selfish.” 

“Bones - how- you saved me and beat Khan-” Struggling against the sheets, Jim pushed himself to sit up a bit, 

“Fuck Khan, Jim, fuck him - I don’t care about Khan, I care about you and how I’m left to piece you back together!” Leonard never minded the regen here or stitch there, but major surgery, major regen for radiation, a medical coma and everything in between after starting up his heart again? He was carrying too much. Hissing out a curse, he sank his head between his knees again, it might be the expulsion of trapped emotions he was needing, but it was far from therapeutic. 

“Bones, I didn’t die on purpose.”  
“Don’t lie to me, kid.” Jim began to protest, but Leonard cut him off. “If you didn’t mean to die, then why the hell did you go in that chamber?” Leonard’s eyes were swimming in hurt, unable to get the vision of a crumpled Jim against the glass out his head. There was only one last question on Leonard’s mind and he was sure that if he didn’t say it now, even in a voice as small as the one he could muster, he would never have said it. 

“And why, why didn’t you call for me?”

At that, Jim closed his mouth and swallowed hard, his eyes shifting to the door as if he wanted to escape. 

“I couldn’t let you see me die and not be able to do anythin’ about it.” In Jim’s mind, Leonard would’ve fought to get him out the chamber and probably radiate himself in the process, but with Spock, he understood a lost cause when he saw it. 

“But, Jim, you didn’t even give me the chance to say…” Even after Jim’s heart had started beating again, Leonard was preoccupied with the fact that he never got to say his goodbyes to Jim - or, if he was being honest, what he really wanted Jim to know. 

“I wanted to call for you, but I didn’t think it would’ve been fair.” Leonard’s head tilted and brows dipped, not understanding what Jim had meant by ‘fair’. 

“So you think Spock deserved to be with you in your last moments more than me?” The words dragged through his mouth like spikes, adding insult to injury and salt to his wounds. Here he was fighting with the fact that having to patch up the man he loved after every fight, having to restart hearts and heal every organ from the cellular level up from radiation, and he was being told someone came before Leonard in Jim’s mind.

“No, Bones, not like that.” 

“Then like what, Jim? ‘Cause that’s how it damn well sounded.” Leonard made to stand and leave, not wanting to take any more hurt in one afternoon, but as he raised his arm to lean on the chair, Jim took his wrist, pressing his index and middle fingers to the centre of Leonard’s wrist. 

“It wouldn’t be fair to have left you like that, ‘cause I know if you’d ran into engineering, I would’ve told you too much.” Jim’s eyes raised to meet Leonards and it was unspoken and unclear, but Leonard didn’t want to push it any more - he didn’t want to have his hopes raised just to have misinterpreted something and have his heart lurching harder than it already was. “Spock is my friend, and he’s yours too, I know it, but it was easier to… leave after telling him that than it would’ve been to tell you you meant more. To me.” Jim’s fingers left Leonard’s wrist to run over his palm and thread through his steady fingers. 

Leonard, clenching his jaw in a vain attempt to ignore his heart being released from the vice it was in for the first time in weeks. Squeezing Jim’s hand in his, returning the affection, he shook his head and tried to fight the smile of the break he finally caught. 

“You’re a goddamned idiot, Jim Kirk, and you’ll be the death of me eventually.” 

#

As Spock left to inform the rest of the bridge crew and a few others how Jim had been looking, Leonard’s eyes remained trained on his PADD.  
“I’ll give you another dose about seven to make you sleep the night, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn't rest some more just now. I’ll get the nurses to...” He could feel Jim’s bright blue’s on him, trying to interrupt him. “What?”

“Bones, I know you saved my life, too.” His voice was a lot surer than the last time he had woke, but his left hand reached to search for Leonard’s left all the same. “I know that without you, I’d be in the ground already.” 

Sitting the PADD in his hand onto the window sill, he leaned against the sill and looked over Jim with a hint of lingering annoyance at his comment.

“Don’t say that.” But, Jim only shrugged, sure in the fact that if he was heading for a nice pine box, Bones would be fighting the reaper once again for his beating heart. “But you should be resting.” 

“I’ll rest when you pop me those pills later, but I don’t want to sleep now, Bones.” Jim’s fever bright eyes met Leonard’s and his broken heart squeezed at the memory of Jim’s lifeless pupils, shining torches in them looking for a response - and now, that sparkling soul he reached so far to save was hot in the two rings of the warmest oceans he knew. “I wanna stay awake.”

With a small sigh Leonard crossed to the chair and flopped down, stretching his legs out to show he was there to stay. 

“I’ll be right here, I don’t have any other patients right now, you get me to yourself - greedy bastard - so just, shut your eyes.”

“Then lie up with me.” Jim suggested, knowing fine well that bed was a single and there’d be no way in hell for him and all six broad feet of Leonard - no matter how much he was scooting over.

“Jim, you can’t be serious-” The look on his face said otherwise but the logistics didn’t really seem possible as he looked at the gap Jim had attempted to make for him. 

“Fine.” Leonard gave in. “But if I fall off or can’t fit, don’t you dare laugh.”

“Deal.” But that sunny grin wasn’t fooling Leonard. Still, he sat on the bed first before swinging his legs up and lying back, his left hand automatically running over Jim’s hair. “You made it.” Jim raised his brows, his silent ‘told you so’ all too loud. 

“Just. There’s still a chance I could fall off.” But with that, Jim wrapped an arm around Leonard’s waist and shook his head.

“Not now, Bones.” As Jim’s eyes shut, for once following his doctor's orders, it occurred to Leonard that there had been one thing he didn’t get an answer for. 

“Why were you takin’ my pulse, Jim? All those different times?” 

“‘Cause I wanted to make sure you were really here.” 

#


End file.
